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What Would Walt Do?
You may have seen that I’m leading a Customer Service Expedition to Disney World with my friend Vance Morris in February.
I’ve, mostly, been discussing it in my Customer Service tips and newsletters, but it’s critical to understand that ALL GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE STARTS WITH GREAT LEADERSHIP.
While at Disney World, you’ll discover the secrets Disney leadership uses to get minimum wages employees (cast members) delivering, what is considered by many to be, THE MODEL for The World Best Customer Service.
My friend and mentor Dan Kennedy is a self described curmudgeon (a bad-tempered or surly person), yet he seldom goes on vacation anywhere other than Disney World. He says, “One of the reasons I go to Disney World is that I am never told no.”
Vance Morris, my co-host on our Disney Business Accelerator Service Boot Camp is a past ten year executive with Disney. I’ll be asking this question to Vance and other current Disney execs we meet with at the boot camp. “My friend says he comes to Disney World because he’s never to no. How do you train your team to not say no when the answer is no?”
What question will you ask the current
Disney execs when we meet with them?
P.S. February in Orlando sounds pretty nice eh?
What would Walt do
with your business or practice?
There is an insidious decline in customer and client service in America with many customer service departments focused on neither service nor customers. This gradual, seemingly harmless, decline may not be easily noticed, but it is having a grave effect on the profits of businesses across America. And if Walt Disney were to rescue some these laggards of customer service, here is what he would do…
The first thing Walt would do with your business is to infuse some magic into it. But not the magic that you may be thinking of… A different sort of magic.
You generally do not hear or use the word magic in business, unless of course you are a magician. You won’t find magic on a balance sheet or in a financial statement of any business. Most bean counters will probably not be able to measure the return on investment (ROI) for magic, nor is it depreciated or amortized over the next 20 years. How then, does the Disney company, a multi-billion dollar global enterprise manage to generate so much money around magic?
We all know that there really is no magic. Only the illusion thereof. To the audience the magic show is something that can be completely amazing, filled with wonderment and joy. Not knowing how the trick or illusion is performed is all part of the fun of a magic show. However, to the magician performing the show, the perspective is the polar opposite.
A magic show is merely a very systematic event, a series of repeatable steps designed to create a specific outcome; the delight and amazement of the audience. Now to answer the question posed above… Disney really has practical magic all figured out. I hate to burst your bubble, but contrary to popular legend, Disney does not have a mine where pixie dust is extracted and then showered on the cast members (Disney speak for employee) before every working shift. They just have a REPEATABLE, replicable system to perform their show.
It is practiced.
It is updated.
It is practiced again, and again and again.
Then it is performed. Whether it be at a restaurant at one of the resorts, an attraction at a park or the route the buses take, all the magic at Disney is created with repeatable, replicable, practiced systems.
The next thing Walt would do with your business would be to implement some WOW components to how you serve your clients. The question Walt would ask you is “how can you create an experience out of the mundane”
The Wow Component means not only to meet the expectations of your clients or guests, but to exceed them, on a repeatable and consistent basis. To be sure, there are many companies that may WOW their clients occasionally. Maybe the occasional “above the call of duty” experience. Getting upgraded for free on a flight, extra whipped cream on a sundae, or an employee just did everything possible to make an unhappy client, happier.
But to truly Disnify your business, you need to make exceeding your clients’ expectations your standard operating procedure. In order to consistently exceed your clients’ expectations, you must be dogmatic, strict and unyielding in your pursuit. Analyzing your clients’ experience (from their perspective, not yours), understanding your Client Compass (Needs, Wants, Stereotypes and Emotions) and committing every part of your business (Processes, Infrastructure, Design and Training) to creating a magical experience.
The next thing, Walt would introduce to your business is to have an obsession with details. Walt Disney was famous for his attention to every detail and he dictated that everyone had the same attention that he did.
Every business should be about the details. One small oversight of the smallest of details is the beginning of the end for you. You must be unwavering in your demand for adherence to every detail in your business.
One of the chief causes of failure today is the striving for unearned success. Doing just the bare minimum in providing service and then wondering why your client never calls you back. I recently had an appliance repair company come to the house to fix a noise in the drier. When they arrived the technician was in a clean uniform (it was already 2 oclock and he had been working), placed a mat on my porch to wipe his feet, placed a towel under his tool bag and used special mat to slide out the drier so he would not scratch the floor. Now mind you, the drier is in my basement on a concrete floor and he still used the special mat. Deciding on the right “level” for each thing we do is important.
Walt once said: even if I’m the only one that notices, some things are still worth doing, because I need to be prideful to be motivated. I’m paraphrasing, but I’m close. I have to be proud of what I do, at least comfortable with it, regardless of others’ appreciation. And if I lived on others’ appreciation, my service would be nowhere as powerful as it is. Few clients can appreciate every nuance, my reasoning and the psychology behind the service I provide, many take it for granted, hardly anybody faints from awe or gives my technicians standing ovation.
Walt would then create a Service Theme and Service Standards for your business. Disney’s Service Theme is “To create happiness for people of all ages everywhere.” Vaguely sounds like a USP, doesn’t it? This Theme is the foundation and prerequisite for all undertakings at Disney. Every decision made by the cast and management is measured against it.
Service Standards are then set to create the specific actions that are necessary to achieve the Service Theme. Disney has ONLY FOUR Service Standards. Here they are in order of importance: Safety, Courtesy, Show and Efficiency.
This is cut in stone.
It is immovable.
There is no questioning it.
This is the guiding principle for everything that happens at Disney.
Safety: Safety is built into everything they do. It is the first consideration when they are designing Rides and Resorts, Emergency Services, Environmental Protection, Prevention, Training and Policies & Procedures.
Courtesy: Courtesy is taught from day 1. The fundamentals include Treating every Guest as a VIP, knowing the answers to questions (or finding the answers), giving the personal touch, using friendly phrases and gestures and being aggressively friendly.
Show: Show is integrated into every element of setting and theme. This includes Cast Appearance, Costumes, Documentation, Show Quality reviews, Standards Manuals, and of course, Cast Members are performers as well as service providers.
Efficiency: Efficiency involves both the utilization of facilities and systems and the cast members who operate them. Points that are considered include: Capacity of Facility, Guest Flow Patterns, Sales, Speed of Service, Space Utilization and Operational Readiness.
In order to have over 75,000 employees providing a seamless, exciting and memorable experience to millions upon millions of people 365 days a year, you must have a systematic process to avoid the utter chaos that would ensue.
There are processes for every little thing that occurs at Disney. From putting air in bus tires, to the bus drivers’ greeting to guests, from how many lanes are needed at the entrance to the park to how the parking lots are filled up, there is a step-by-step, exacting procedure for each.
And as with any good plan, process or system, there are clog or combustion points, and breakdowns can occur. And instead of creating a happy memory for a guest, that clog point can turn a good day into a bad one rapidly. One example we worked on was the “Lost Car” problem.
Imagine if you will that you have rented a car, (Continued P10 – What Would Walt Do?)
that by the way looks like just about all the other rental cars in Orlando, and you parked it in a veritable ocean of other cars early in the morning. Then after 8, 10, twelve hours at the Magic Kingdom, they emerge only to forget where they parked. Was it Goofy 5, Pluto 4 or Daisy 9? (Disney names and numbers its’ lots after their characters). The tram drivers also announce those locations as guests board the trams, but still, cars are lost.
Now instead of leaving those sunburned, exhausted and weary tourists wandering will-nilly through the acres of parking lots, the cast came up with a fix of sorts. Since the parking lots are filled in a specific order, the tram drivers began keeping track of what lot and row they were in at the time the cars were parked in the morning. That list was then distributed to the next shift of parking attendants. So if the guest could remember at least an approximate time they arrived, they could narrow down where the car was.
Examining your processes and choke points could reveal some serious client and guest pain points.
Finally, and this really is the bottom line point: You are running a business. Disney, at the end of the day is a BUSINESS. And the whole point of running a business is to generate PROFIT. As of this writing, Disney has just increased it park entry tickets by another 5%, and NO ONE is complaining. If they are, they are doing so quietly, as the theme parks are having record attendance. Also, as of this writing, Disney announced that they have raised their stock dividends a whopping 34% after a year of record results.
IF that’s not a reason to Disnify your business, I don’t know what is.
Join Vance Morris, ten year Disney exec and me at Disney World Ferbruary 27 – March 2 and discover how to Disnify Your Business.
Get your Invitation and complete details at https://keithlee.com/disney-info.
It Starts and Ends with Trust
How to Get Your Team to Open Up… It Starts and Ends with Trust
I learned a number of great lessons from my mentor, retired ex-partner, and founder of American Retail Supply; Dick Thompson. One of the best was, “When you point your finger at someone, three fingers are pointing back at you.”
As I share this story with you, please understand that 3 fingers are pointing back at me. This was one of my biggest failures as the president of our company. In hindsight, I should have done a much better job making sure this manager understood and truly bought into the Make-You-Happy Management System and its reliance on team member participation.
Middle management can be a particular challenge with the Make-You-Happy Management System, especially when that manager has previously managed in a business that does not practice Z-theory management (participative management). It can really be a challenge when the middle manager has previously leaned towards X Theory (authoritarian management).
It’s critical that your middle managers understand and buy into Z-Theory Management when you use The Make-You-Happy Management System.
When I owned American Retail Supply, our headquarters were in Kent, Washington, and we had distribution and sales offices in Denver, Dallas, and Honolulu. One of our division managers asked me this question, “When facilitating a MAT, how do you get the ball rolling when you’re just staring at blank faces? I just sometimes feel like people have enough energy to complain, but are unwilling to use their energy to help solve the problem or think of a positive/better solution.”
When he sent me this email, he had been with us for almost a year. I had been working with him on this and other, similar issues and I knew what the problem was.
I would normally not put this type of answer in an email, but I wasn’t making much progress and I thought it was time to put our previous discussions in writing. Maybe that would get through. Here’s my answer: “The problem you express above is a symptom, not the disease. The disease is they don’t believe you’re sincere when you tell them you want their input. In other words, they don’t trust you.
Think back to us talking at the show in Las Vegas. You said that you do this to show you’re decisive, or you do that to show that you’re understanding or fair.
That’s when we talked about a silly management philosophy that says that a new manager should come in strong and tough and you can then back off after you get respect. That’s what I perceived that you were thinking and doing when you started managing.
I told you that was a bad idea. A good manager should come in and be appropriate and fair to show that you are appropriate and fair. Once you get their trust and show them that you really want to listen and be their coach, cheerleader, facilitator and nurturer of champions and not a cop, devils advocate, pronouncer and nay-sayer they will open up.
If they don’t open up, it’s because they don’t trust you. They don’t see you as a coach, cheerleader, facilitator and nurturer of champions. People open up to coaches, cheerleaders, facilitators and nurturers of champions. They don’t open up to cops, devil’s advocates, pronouncers and nay-sayers.
As we’ve continued to talk since Las Vegas I still hear you saying that you said this to show you’re decisive, or you do that to show that you’re understanding or fair. That’s being manipulative – not being a coach, cheerleader, facilitator and nurturer of champions.
Again, you need to do what is right and appropriate because it is right and appropriate – not to be decisive, or strong or anything else.
Ask yourself this question, what have you done consistently with each and every person in your division to show that you are a coach, cheerleader, facilitator and nurturer of champions? It is absolutely critical that you think of this from their point of view and not from the “I do this to show I’m that” point of view.
My first suggestion is to look in the index of the Team Handbook in the Make-You-Happy Management System under “meeting tools and techniques – warm-ups”. There are ideas in there to get involvement.
Again, that’s going to be tough because if they don’t trust you they’ll just see that as a way to manipulate them. I would still try it.
Ask them what things they think need to be improved, or what problems they have with getting their jobs done efficiently and effectively.
If you’re still getting nowhere try this. Say, “In Kent they answer the phone the same way every time.
- Greeting – “Thanks for calling”
- Identification – “American Retail Supply”
- What you can do for them – “How may I direct your call?”
They developed their greeting in Kent from watching a DVD by “The Telephone Doctor” who says, there are two reasons to have a greeting before you identify the company.
- Often the person calling isn’t ready to listen right away
- Sometimes when we answer the phone we start talking before we have the receiver all the way to our mouth
Keith asked us to come up with a similar greeting for us. He also said when he calls he sometimes doesn’t know who he’s talking with and it would be good to hear your name in the greeting.
So, with that in mind, he asked us to come up with a greeting that would be the model for answering the phone in each division where we don’t have a dedicated receptionist to say “How may I direct your call?”
How should we answer the phone to include:
- Greeting
- Identification of the company and the individual
- What you can do for them
- If no one answers say, Bill, what do you think? Then come up with a greeting everyone can agree on and implement it.
Here’s one I would love to see you discuss, “I want to come up with a dress code that everyone thinks is fair and appropriate for the job. Who would like to help with this”? This is what I suggested that you do right after you got flaked on the dress code you implemented without getting the team involved.
You decided that would show weakness. I think it shows just the opposite, that you know you’re not perfect and you’re confident enough to admit it when you make a mistake.
Click here https://keithlee.com/freedom-for-business-owners to discover how to manage your entire team in one hour a week so you can spend your time on the important things in your business.
Create Customer Service Legends
Who’s Your Competition
The Competition is Anyone the Customer Compares You to
I learned this from Disney. One of the ways people experience Disney is by telephone. Disney gets thousands of calls every day. Many of the calls are from the same people who call businesses that are known for their great telephone service. Businesses like LL Bean, Cabela’s, and FedEx.
So when the same people who call Cabela’s or FedEx, or anyone with superior telephone service, call Disney, Disney understands that they are being compared to the service people get when calling Cabela’s or FedEx. Disney then does what they need to do to “compete” with FedEx’s telephone service.
So the lesson is, don’t just think of your competitors as the businesses that sell the same things you do. Think of the competition as anyone who deals with your customers in any way. Learn the best practices from anywhere you can, determine how you can use them in your business, and implement them.
Here’s an example of how we did this in our business. Many years ago, we did what everyone in our industry did. When we got an order for a stock item it shipped two to four days later. I happened to call Cabela’s to get some fly fishing supplies and they said the order would ship that afternoon. So, thinking of what I learned from Disney, I said to myself, “We need to do that,” and we did. Today if an order is received within 30 minutes of our FedEx pick up, it ships that day.
You can get my hardcopy book (not an e-book), The Happy Customer Handbook, 59 Secrets to Creating Happy Customers Who Come Back Time and Time Again and Enthusiastically Tell Others About You at www.TheHappyCustomerHandbook.com. Your cost is $2.97 and that includes shipping and handling.
We Always Have Perfect Customer Service – NOT!
We Always Have Perfect Customer Service – NOT!
In all of my businesses, we make mistakes. We spend lots of time and money to make our procedures as efficient and foolproof as possible, but we still make mistakes. So, where do I get off telling people like you that you need to have Exceptional Customer Service?
While nobody likes to be at the receiving end of a mistake, we all know that people make mistakes. Exceptional Customer Service requires that we first person your customer talks to solve the problem?”
Does everyone in your business know how to help an upset customer?
Do your customers know that Exceptional Customer Service is what they should expect from you?
I get a few phone calls each year from customers who don’t think they are getting Exceptional Customer Service from us. Almost all of these calls start with, “I read in your newsletter that customer service is important to you, I don’t think I’m getting very good service…” or “A few months ago when I was on hold I heard that you wanted me to call you if I had a problem that wasn’t being taken care of…” Sure nobody likes getting calls like this but in another way I LOVE GETTING THEM!
What’s the alternative? For most businesses it’s a customer who really doesn’t want the hassle of complaining. The customer who goes to the competition and not only doesn’t recommend you to others, but maybe even bad mouths you. I love customers who give us the opportunity to MAKE THEM HAPPY. Find a way to tell your customers that you want to know if they are not happy.
I stole an idea from Stu Leonard’s Supermarket in Connecticut. He has a big sign with his picture that says, What Do You Like? What Don’t You Like? I’d Like to Know. Every invoice we send out has a flyer that asks the same questions Stu Leonard asks. While it is redundant to send it out with every invoice, we do. I want to be sure that every customer knows that they should expect Exceptional Customer Service and that I want to know if they don’t get it.
Act
The video, In Search of Excellence, says most suggestion boxes get little to no use. They say the reason is customers know that their suggestions will get no action. Stu Leonard’s box is filled, mostly with good comments, every day. Why do people take the time to write? The video says it’s because they know something will be done. If customers take the time to contact you, take the time to let them know what you are doing.
Every customer who writes to us at any of our businesses, whether it’s a good comment or a complaint, gets a response.
You can get my hardcopy book (not an e-book), The Happy Customer Handbook, 59 Secrets to Creating Happy Customers Who Come Back Time and Time Again and Enthusiastically Tell Others About You at www.TheHappyCustomerHandbook.com. Your cost is $2.97 and that includes shipping and handling.
Think Upside Down
Think about growing your business. What are you going to do to grow your business this year? Take a minute right now and think.
If you’re like most people, when you think about growing your business you think about getting new customers. The mega retailers spend millions of dollars each year trying to get new customers to come into their stores… and it continually amazes me that once they get me into their store the customer service is often so bad I won’t ever go back.
I’m suggesting that when it comes to growing your business Think Up-Side-Down. In order to grow your business, rather than thinking about getting new customers first, think first about keeping your existing customers.
Let’s look at the numbers. Assume that “Their Store” wants to grow by 10% next year. Let’s further assume that their customer service is typical of most major retailers and 2 out of 10 customers decide they are going to take their business elsewhere because of the lousy service. Let’s assume another 5% go somewhere else for a multitude of reasons. So they lose 25% of their business each year. So now, rather than growing by 10%, “Their Store” needs to grow by 35% to hit their target growth rate of 10%.
Now let’s look at “Your Store”. You also want to grow by 10%. But because you and everyone on your staff understands that customers give each and every one of you your paycheck, and your vacations, and your raises, and everything else you get; you simply do not lose customers due to poor customer service. You do lose about 5% of your customers each year for a variety of reason – they move, they die, misunderstandings, whatever. So after you take into account losing customers, you need to grow 15% to reach your 10% growth rate.
So the morale of the story is… It’s a lot easier to grow your business if you take care of your existing customers.
When you think about growing your business Think Up-Side-Down. Think in this order:
1. What can I do to keep my existing customers?
2. What can I do to increase business with my existing customers?
and finally…
3. How can I get new customers?
Concentrate on keeping your existing customers and doing more business with your existing customers and you’ll get the Happy Customer Bonus… dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of people selling for you. You’ll have Happy Customers telling others about you. And then you’ll have the absolutely best kind of advertising – advertising that money can’t buy – “WORD-OF-MOUTH ADVERTISING”… and you’ll have those new customers walking into your store.
- Here are ideas in Out-Nordstrom Nordstrom, Creating the World’s Best Customer Service that will help you keep existing customers, increase business with existing customers, and get new customers.
Be sure everyone in your company understands Who’s The Boss. See secret #40 in Out-Nordstrom Nordstrom. - Be sure everyone in your company understands How To Take Care Of Upset Customers – Secret #43.
- Can your business pass the acid test of Exceptional Customer Service? Are the huge majority of customer complaints resolved by the first person who talks to the customer? Secret #23.
- Does everyone in your company know what exceptional customer service is? Secret #4.
You can get my hard copy book (not an e-book), The Happy Customer Handbook, 59 Secrets to Creating Happy Customers Who Come Back Time and Time Again and Enthusiastically Tell Others About You at www.TheHappyCustomerHandbook.com. Your cost is $2.97 and that includes shipping and handling.
11 Customer Service Lessons from One Phone Call
I called one of our very good clients who has a brick and mortar store, excellent mail order business, superb telemarketing organization, and a top notch web site. They don’t have a retail store in my area, so I usually order online or call them. I order from them for a number of reasons:
- They are a very good client of ours.
- Their products are superb.
- Their service is almost always at the Make-You-Happy level.
But even the best businesses fall short, and that’s why we need consistent and persistent reinforcement of Make-You-Happy Customer Service. One of the areas that continually amazes me is how often people assume they know what you are going to ask and therefore don’t really listen to what you’re saying.
I had ordered top quality expensive wading boots from them – I use them for fly fishing in rivers. When I got them, they were too narrow. I looked through their catalog and saw that the only boot they had in the catalog that was available in wide widths was a lower price model. Now, I’m not snobby, but my feet are old enough that I need the support and extra sole thickness that most low price models don’t have.
So I called the 800 number to ask if they had any higher quality boots in wide widths. A very nice, good customer service person told me that was the only boot that actually came in a wide width, but suggested that I call back in the morning and ask for a “boot product specialist” and see if one of the boots “ran” wider than the model I ordered.
I thought that was a great idea! I buy New Balance Tennis Shoes for that reason. I don’t need to get a “wide”, their shoes just “run” wider. So I called back the next day and asked for a product specialist. I told him that I had already found out that the only boot they carry in a wide was their inexpensive model and that the customer service person suggested I call back to see if any of the more expensive models “ran” wide and might work for me. He said, “Let me check.”
It was quiet for a while, so I thought he was “checking” with someone else to see if any of their boots “ran” wider. But then I heard him mumbling on the phone. He was reading from the web page. I told him I had already read everything on the web and none of the other boots came in wide widths and asked again if he or anyone there knew if any brands “ran” wider. He just went back to reading the catalog. Finally, I just said, “Never mind” and hung up.
I went to the local fly shop that is not very convenient for me to get to and found that they didn’t have any boots that came in wide widths either. But they did have a great boot that ran wide. I bought a $139.00 pair of boots. And yes, you guessed it. The company I called in the first place has the same boot.
The “product specialist” was very nice and polite and I’m sure he had customer service training. The company’s customer service is consistently too good to think it just comes about without training. With that said, there are at least 11 lessons to learn from this one call.
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Train your team to truly listen.
Pay particular attention to people in your organization who tend to answer questions from you and others before they listen to the entire question. Pay particular attention to those who like to finish questions for others. Truly listen and don’t assume that you know what someone is going to say. You know what happens when you assume. You make ass-u-me.
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Monitor your customer service.
This seems almost too obvious, but while it may be obvious, almost no one does it. Whether you use secret shoppers, your own people, or recordings, don’t ass-u-me that your people are doing what they’ve been trained to do. And don’t ass-u-me that they do the same things when you or another manager are around and when you’re not. You surely can’t monitor every customer service interaction, but in this case, over time, the business I called would certainly hear a similar customer service interaction and be able to address it in their training.
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Make sure your customers know what to do when they are not being served properly.
This is included as Customer Service Secret #4 in The Happy Customer Handbook. Be sure your Customer’s Know Your Extraordinary Customer Service Expectations. But they not only need to know your extraordinary customer service expectations, they need to know what to do when they don’t get Make-You-Happy Customer Service. In as many ways as you can, tell your customers what them to do when they don’t get Make-You-Happy Customer Service. Tell them when they are on hold on the phone. Tell them in any communication that you send to them. Tell them with signage. At American Retail Supply we tell our clients to call us at 800-426-5708 if we ever let them down and if they are still not happy call me, Keith Lee, the owner of the company, at 253-859-7310. If I had been told, “If we ever let you down, please call Bill at xxx-xxx-xxxx I would have likely called Bill who would have found out that they do have a great brand of wading shoes that runs wider. They would not have only thrilled me, they would have me writing an entirely different story about their Make-You-Happy Customer Service and I would have told you their name and I would have spread a huge amount of positive word-of-mouth advertising!
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Know Your Product.
I’m not going to harp on this too much because we are human and we can’t know everything. But I do think that a “boot product specialist” should have known if any of the brands “run” wide. And if not he should have been trained to do #6 below.
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Know Your Customers.
I am a very good customer for the company I called. Good enough that they send me a hard back version of their master catalog that is about an inch and a half thick. I believe in giving every customer Make-You-Happy Customer Service. With that said, your best customers should be taken care of even to a higher degree. Yes, the customer that buys $200,000 a year from us gets Super Duper Make-You-Happy Customer Service. But you say, “How can they know that you’re a great customer?” That’s Make-You-Happy Customer Service Secret #27. Have a Great Data Base. I’m going to be blunt here. With the price of computers and software today, there is simply no excuse for not knowing who your great customers are, and you are throwing money away by not marketing to and treating them differently. And that difference should not affect giving your other customers Make-You-Happy Customer Service. In this instance, the product specialist should have pulled up my account, saw that I was one of their best customers and done something special to take care of me. What could he have done? He could have called someone in the company that knew my answer and called me back. He could have called his manufacturers and called me back. He could have gone to the warehouse and tried on some boots to see if any “ran” wide. He could have done something. Should he have done those things for someone who buys $3.95 a year? Probably not. But he should have for one of their best customers.
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Train people to know where to go to get answers.
I covered this a bit in #5. There are a lot of things he could have done to answer my question, but the biggest frustration was that he never seemed to listen well enough to hear the question properly. We have a lot of products at American Retail Supply. So regardless of how much training we give them, there is absolutely no way our new reps can know everything when we put them on the phones. So we spend a lot of time in our training teaching them where they need to go to get answers. When they start, we constantly remind our reps of the most important sentence to learn, “I’m sorry, I don’t know, but I’ll find out and get back to you by …” And then get back to them when you told them you would.
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Create loyal customers.
In this instance, one of my favorite places to shop let me down. But that’s unusual. Their service, products and delivery are usually superb and because they are, I’m loyal and I’ll continue to shop with them.
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You can learn multiple lessons from poor customer service in your business.
The normal response to bad customer service is to simply blame the person who delivered the poor service. As you can see by the ten things we learned from this one phone call, you can learn a great deal from one instance of poor service and there are lots of things that could have been done so that this didn’t happen. It’s not just the reps fault.
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If you truly believe in, and practice, Make-You-Happy Customer Service you will have multiple ways to catch and fix poor customer service.
When you implement Make-You-Happy Customer Service, you have many more ways to identify, catch, and fix service that is less than Make-You-Happy. One of the basics of Make-You-Happy Customer Service is that you can only expect what you inspect. In others words you need to have systems in place to inspect your customer if you expect Make-You-Happy customer Service.
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Your customer service will improve when you implement the Make-You-Happy Management System with the Make-You-Happy Customer Service.
When you implement the Make-You-Happy Management System all team members are trained to recognize service that falls short of Make-You-Happy Customer Service. They are trained to not only recognize it, but also do something about it. I don’t have room to go into the Make-You-Happy Management System here, but it not only reinforces Make-You-Happy Customer Service, it creates it!
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Three Fingers Pointing Back at You.
I learned a lot of wonderful lessons from my mentor Dick Thompson. One of them is, “remember, when you point your finger at someone else, three fingers are pointing back at you”. If I’m with someone else and we get poor customer service the other person will often say “I can’t believe how rude (stupid, incompetent, whatever) that person was.” My response is always the same, “That’s management’s fault.”
You can get my hardcopy book (not an e-book), The Happy Customer Handbook, 59 Secrets to Creating Happy Customers Who Come Back Time and Time Again and Enthusiastically Tell Others About You at www.TheHappyCustomerHandbook.com. Your cost is $2.97 and that includes shipping and handling.
Grumpy Must Have Been a Make-You-Happy Customer Service Fanatic
A story from a Customer Service Fanatic…
Often when I speak to a crowd, I ask people in the audience how often they get “Who’s the Boss” Customer Service” (See secret #40 in my book – The Happy Customer Handbook) It’s the kind of customer service that shows they really understand that “you, the customer, are the boss.”
When I ask, “How many of you get that kind of customer service most of the time?” No hands go up. When I say, “Half of the time,” a few hands go up. When I say “25% of the time,” most hands go up.
Frankly, I’m surprised that people say they get “Who’s the Boss” customer service 25% of the time, because for me it’s more like 10% of the time. I think it’s because I’ve harped on exceptional customer service so long that maybe I have gotten a bit jaded. Maybe my expectations of exceptional customer service have gone beyond what’s likely to happen. Well, I do get it 10% of the time so I know it’s possible so I’m going to stay where I am. I’m going to stay with my fanatical approach to exceptional customer service.
But I need to warn you…
When you get to the point where I am, you’re likely to be grumpy more often, because you’ll go into places wanting and expecting exceptional customer service, and you’re not going to get it. Like today, when I went to lunch. Most of the time when I go shopping or to a restaurant, I’ll say something to the clerk whether the clerk says anything or not. But every once in a while, because I’m a customer service fanatic and a guy who writes customer service newsletters and gives customer service advice, I don’t say anything. I want see what their customer service is like if I don’t saying anything. I’m absolutely amazed at how often the clerk on the other side of the counter says absolutely nothing.
When I went to restaurant today, I did my little test and planned to not say anything until the clerk did. The clerk came to the register and looked at me – no smile – not a word. She just came to the register and looked at me.
I gave her my order, she told me the price – I gave her my money – she gave me my change – and said nothing. In the entire process the only word that was spoken by the clerk was the price of the meal. No greeting, no thank you… nothing – just the price.
While you may be Grumpy more often when you become a Make-You-Happy Customer Service Fanatic, it will also put a smile on your face when you realize how crummy most service is. You’ll smile as you realize that the more people get crummy customer service, the easier it is for you to give what is perceived as Exceptional Customer Service!
You can get my hardcopy book (not an e-book), The Happy Customer Handbook, 59 Secrets to Creating Happy Customers Who Come Back Time and Time Again and Enthusiastically Tell Others About You at www.TheHappyCustomerHandbook.com. Your cost is $2.97 and that includes shipping and handling.